Cocktail Party Fact: Mahler never heard this, his last completed symphony, performed.

Commitment Factor: 80 to 90 minutes

Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Modern Period (1909). This symphony reverses traditional form: two slow outer movements enclose two quick ones. The movements share themes, most especially the second movement’s demented waltz tune, and the slow central interlude in the third movement (which become main themes in the finale).

What to Listen For: Many consider the first movement to be the most impressive single thing that Mahler ever wrote. The very opening, a faltering heart-beat rhythm, and a four note “bell” theme on the harp, returns at each crucial junction, until at the climax of the movement, the entire orchestra seems to run off the top of a cliff, crashing into these simple opening measures–now blasted out on brass and timpani as a terrifying vision of death. The goofy second movement and vicious third only increase the tension, which is finally released in a glorious adagio finale, a transcendent slow movement with a final page that Leonard Bernstein called the most graphic illustration of the act of dying ever composed.